Posted
by
Soulskill
on Friday June 01, 2012 @03:27PM
from the easier-to-lose dept.

New submitter mk1004 writes "ETSI members have approved a new, smaller SIM format. 'The fourth form factor (4FF) card will be 40% smaller than the current smallest SIM card design, at 12.3mm wide by 8.8mm high, and 0.67mm thick. It can be packaged and distributed in a way that is backwards compatible with existing SIM card designs. The new design will offer the same functionality as all current SIM cards.' Nokia is not happy about the decision, as they believe their version was superior, but they say they're prepared to license the patents essential to the standard."

If given the choice between an ever shrinking SIM card versus the alternative of getting on my hands and knees and begging the CDMA provider to allow my handset on their network, I'll take the SIM card.

Say I find a cool phone from overseas. GSM, I can use it here in the US, although I likely will get stuck with EDGE speeds. Overseas, CDMA providers use R/UIM cards (functionally identical to SIM cards). A CDMA provider here in the US would laugh and tell me where to stuff the phone, since they likely wouldn't allow any device near their network they didn't sell.

It also works the other way around. An unlocked iPhone that has dual radios can go for a world tour and generally find GSM access. A CDMA device that doesn't have a GSM secondary radio would be pretty much a neutered PDA outside CONUS.

You obviously don't travel. I've changed SIM cards a dozen times in a week when switching between the card I use for home, our corporate office, and my parent's house. For example, AT&T charges $19.97 per Mbyte for data(!!!) at my parent's house. Orange changes about as much at my house as compared to where I work. As I did one day accidentally last month, downloading a 10 Mbyte attachmen cost me nearly $200 since I forgot to switch SIM cards .

On to the real problem with SIM cards, they're horrifically unreliable. They're an extra unnecessary point of failure. I manage about 400 phones at work, and more than 90% of the problems I deal with are self-created by the phone companies because they decided to require SIM cards. The cards are simply not reliable, and there is no reason for them to exist other than to screw over customers by not allowing us to use our own property. As an American that now lives in Europe, I'm puzzled why people here allow phone companies to create this problem. In the US, I can use my Verizon iPhone without this phone company-created problem. On my AT&T phone, I see the "NO SIM" error several times per month. The phone doesn't beep to notify me that the phone company decided to disable my service so I miss a lot of calls and texts.